"It was a great friendship based on shared intellectual interests," Jones said. "Neither of us was at all sporty, and we were both intensely interested in Milton and Donne and the Metaphysical poets, perhaps slightly unusually for teenage boys. We had tremendous conversations, and great arguments." Recently his mother found a cache of his old school books, which turned out to be covered with notes and scraps of poetry in Pullman's hand.
Fickling says: "These very long-maintained friendships and working relationships are the mark of the man."
One group of friends is quite new. John Keyes, a landscape designer who lives on a canal boat in the heart of Jericho, a bohemian corner of Oxford now under siege by developers, began reading the trilogy and was surprised to recognize himself and his friends. The first kidnap, which launches the complex plot, is set in Jericho, and the boathouse residents are clearly contemporary Gyptians, Pullman's floating gypsies.
Asked for support to fight the development of a delightful backwater, Pullman responded at once, and not only wrote open letters and articles of support, but has appeared at fundraising events. He recently gave a reading at a protest outside the developers' office, though he declined to join the boat people in wearing shark costumes.
Keyes, not much of a reader by his own admission, tackled the books because he liked the man, and was gripped.
"I see a natural philosopher who, rather than becoming a professor within some learned institution, has chosen to express himself in books which are ostensibly for children. He is very wise, and he also has a very dry, pointed sense of humor. He is not bitter, but he is very sharp."
"He is a very able, and a good man. All his work is about delight," Fickling says. "He's not saying it's easy to be alive, but he is saying it's glorious."
RSS